health care reform

Creating a larger, more highly skilled nursing workforce will improve access to higher-quality, more patient-centered, and more affordable care

Medicare's public release of hospital charge data is a bold first step in health care price transparency

Adapted from an article by Mary Agnes Carey, Senior Correspondent, Kaiser Health News

President Obama first nominated Marilyn Tavenner to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) almost 2-1/2 years ago. She's been running the agency, the federal government's largest, as acting administrator for more than a year. CMS has a $820 billion budget, oversees health…

By Russ Mitchell for Kaiser Health News. This story was produced in collaboration with USA Today

Rick Scott took the money but now pays a price.

President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney donned their blue and red ties, respectively, and took to the stage Wednesday evening for the first presidential debate of Election 2012. With little more than a month before Election Day, it was interesting to finally see the two men come face to face. In the 90-minute televised debate broadcast from Denver, Obama and Romney covered ample issues of import to older adults, including Medicare, Medicaid, health care reform and Social Security.

A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine says that when states expanded their Medicaid programs, fewer people died. It may seem common sense that giving low-income Americans more access to affordable health care results in them having better health (and subsequently lower death rates). But critics of Medicaid expansion contend the program does not improve the health of beneficiaries and may even be linked to worse health.

Hey everybody - Jenn here from the Communications team keeping you in the loop on what's up in Springfield this week. Let's talk nursing home reform...

Hello, readers. This is Gerardo with AARP Illinois' Communications team.